Institutional Rankings

UCC Retains Top Spot in 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings for Ghana and West Africa

29th September 2023

Ferdinand | EducationGhana |September 29| UCC Retains Top Spot in 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings for Ghana and West Africa

“The University of Cape Coast (UCC) continues its reign as the best university in Ghana and West Africa, according to the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Despite a slight drop in its African ranking, UCC maintains its regional superiority. Learn more about the rankings and the global higher education landscape in this comprehensive report.”

Cape Coast, Ghana. In the latest release of the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in Ghana proudly retains its position as the foremost educational institution in both Ghana and West Africa. This marks the third consecutive year that UCC has secured this prestigious title.

Key Highlights:

In 2022 and 2023, UCC held the titles of the best university in Ghana, the best in West Africa, the 4th best university in Africa, and the best globally for research influence.
In the 2024 rankings, UCC maintains its position as the best university in Ghana and West Africa, but has slipped slightly from 4th place to 7th place in the overall African rankings.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2024 encompass a staggering 1,904 universities from various countries and regions.

These rankings are based on the new WUR 3.0 methodology, comprising 18 meticulously calibrated performance indicators evaluating institutions across five crucial areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry engagement, and international outlook.

This year’s evaluation process involved the analysis of over 134 million citations drawn from 16.5 million research publications and incorporated feedback from 68,402 scholars worldwide. In total, a comprehensive dataset of 411,789 data points was collected from over 2,673 participating institutions.

The Times Higher Education World Universities Ranking is widely trusted by students, educators, governments, and industry experts. The 2024 league table offers insights into the evolving global higher education landscape.

Globally, the University of Oxford continues its reign at the top for the eighth consecutive year, while Stanford University advances to the second position, displacing Harvard University to fourth place.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) climbs two spots to third place, and the University of Cambridge slides to fifth place after sharing third place last year.

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Notable in the 2024 rankings is the highest new entry, Italy’s Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, placed in the 301-350 bracket. The majority of the new entrants this year hail from Asia, a shift from the previous year when most were from Africa.In terms of representation, the United States leads with 169 institutions, including 56 in the top 200. India follows with 91 institutions, surpassing China (86). Four European nations – Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Armenia – enter the rankings for the first time, contrasting with the previous year’s trend dominated by African newcomers.

UCC Retains Top Spot in 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings for Ghana and West Africa | 2

The rankings also highlight institutional strengths. Stanford University excels in the teaching pillar, while the universities of Oxford and Cambridge lead in the research environment category. The research quality pillar, now known as the citations pillar, sees MIT securing the top spot. The University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates earns the highest score for international outlook, while 28 institutions achieve a perfect score of 100 for the industry pillar.

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Additionally, alongside the 1,904 ranked institutions, an additional 769 universities are listed with “reporter” status, indicating their provision of data while not meeting the eligibility criteria for ranking, but agreeing to be recognized in the final table.